The Advice is Followed.
“So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also, buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.” – Revelation 3:18 (NLT)
Maintaining a living walk with God in the midst of a secular, technological age is no easy matter. We live in a time of spiritual crisis. That is Laodicea!
The gold purified in the fire represents the kind of faith that lasts to the end. Is that kind of faith solely a gift from God or are there practical ways to increase one’s faith? I believe that faith is primarily a gift, but there are also some things we can do to increase our faith.
In the Western world, this spiritual crisis particularly afflicts those that grew up in the turmoil of the 1960s, along with their children. Many things that had been handed down as certainties have proven to be questionable in fact. The advent of computer technology, the Internet, and artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed the way people think and reason. The speed and complexity of life have accelerated rapidly. Nothing seems stable anymore. Jobs are “downsized” the minute your salary becomes comfortable. Where you live seems subject to chance more than intention. As a result, extended families have been ripped apart
In these challenging times, we need to consciously and intentionally cultivate a relationship with God. One of the best ways to do this is to talk about it. Talk about it often and in a wide variety of contexts. Faith is strengthened when we share it. Spend time with people who are full of faith. Every day remind yourself to accept the gold that Jesus offers and allow the circumstances of life to polish that gold into an enduring lustre.
The good news is this verse is referred to again in Rev 16:15 indicating that the Laodicean Church makes it through to the end! Obviously, there are those who heed the counsel here given.
Although the message to the seven churches has universal value, Jesus was certainly addressing a first-century church and its condition through His servant John. If the present condition of the ancient city of Laodicea is any indication, the church at Laodicea never accepted the counsel it received in this book.
Laodicea today is in ruins, yet to be excavated, pictures show marble and clay lay scattered about. Remnants of public baths stick out from the ground. The site has been deserted for over 1500 years! In a real sense, the church at Laodicea was spewed out of Jesus’ mouth (Rev 3:16), it no longer exists.
But there is a deeper sense in which Laodicea still does exist. The author of Revelation seems to associate the church with the last-day people of God, who face the final battle of earth’s history, Armageddon! You see, the counsel Jesus offers to Laodicea in our text for the day is very similar to that given to those facing Armageddon (Rev 16:15). There are four Greek words in common between the two passages: garments, shame, nakedness, and the verb for seeing. No other text in the Bible has this exact same combination of words.
Notice Rev 16:15 (NIV): “Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.” The words for clothes and naked are obvious, even in translation. The words translated “shamefully exposed” represent the two major Greek words “see” and “shame.” When God makes a call to the final generation of earth’s history, He uses the language of Laodicea! While the city of Laodicea is dead, there is something of Laodicea left at the end of time!
So, in some sense, the message to Laodicea represents the followers of Jesus who experience the final crisis of earth’s history. The final remnant is called to accept the counsel to Laodicea and take hold of the true wealth that God offers. The message to Laodicea is, in a special sense, a message to us as well. Revelation 16:15 would seem to indicate that a remnant from Laodicea heed the counsel of this letter.